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Tell me a spooky scary story. Something that happened to you, or someone you know, or local folklore, or something your uncle told you by the campfire. Paranormal experiences welcome. I want to look like pic attached.
(just nothing involving SA pls and thanks)
We had a local folktale similar to a lot of towns near swamps. Ghost lights, sunken treasures, evil creatures wandering the swamps. Well I grew up near a terrifying forest full of all sorts of actual real dangers. So one time some of the local parents decided to have a hay ride through a swamp road. Kind of standard thing to do for kids. Drag a wagon full of hay behind a truck and let the kids see the swamp lights.
Well one time we did it, something felt weird the whole night. Something around 6 kids, mostly my cousins, and me. Riding through this dead silent swamp road. I remember the truck stopping suddenly and the adults were saying something. We looked around the side to see a man in the middle of the road with a lit torch. He looked like a meth addict cult leader. Long scraggly white beard, long black robe. He approached the truck and started shouting for us to turn around that "there's nothing for you out here." Really thick southern accent. As we sat there in the middle of this dirt road, I looked around, noticing that there were glints and movements around the trees. There were a bunch of people surrounding us in the darkness, at least a dozen.
I still have no idea what that was. My best guess is we stumbled into a Klan rally, or an offshoot. Still the scariest encounter I've ever had. It still doesn't feel real.
Holy shit I had no idea about swamp lights, you just sent me down a rabbit hole. That guy and his sudden appearance sound scary as hell.
Yeah swamp lights are either oxidation of phosphorus (which will glow in air) from various sources, or it's gasses bouncing lights around from things like cars or campfires. I actually like them a lot. They're pretty neat and show up in a lot of the world. The myths about will-o-the-wisps and Jack o' Lanterns come from swamp lights and it's also why ghosts in Japanese folklore are often presented as a floating ball of fire.
My parents never took us out to that one stretch of road again. There were so many rumors about who was out there. The other kids tried coming up with supernatural explanations, like we saw ghosts or demons. At this point as an adult I'm pretty sure it was Klansmen, a weird meth group/cult, or some combination of the two.